If a 22.5 L container of nitrogen at a pressure of 748 Pa is compressed to 725 Pa, what is the new volume of the container?

Question

If a 22.5 L container of nitrogen at a pressure of 748 Pa is compressed to 725 Pa, what is the new volume of the container?

Answer 1

in this problem you would use the equation PV=nRT but since the number of moles and the temperature appear to be constant they would cancel out with along with R. This leaves us with P1*V1=P2*V2

 

since the units on the pressures are the same the units will cancel out and you do not need to convert to atm.

 

rearrange the equation so you have (P1*V1)/P2=V2

 

plug in your values (748Pa*22.5L)/725Pa = 23.2 L

 

you can quickly check to see if your answer makes sense by seeing that since the pressure decreases that means that there are less impacts with the wall of the container meaning that the volume of the container would need to be bigger which our answer shows.